


Horseradish

by srididdledeedee



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/F, Jews - Freeform, Lesbians, birthday gift, two niche materials united into the ULTIMATE NICHE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-29
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-21 04:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11349867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/srididdledeedee/pseuds/srididdledeedee
Summary: Katherine first meets Sarah Jacobs in 1899, after the strike.  A new century brings new ideas, a new way of living, and new love.





	Horseradish

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sapphea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphea/gifts).



They met through Jack. _Technically._ Katherine corrected herself silently as she nervously smoothed her skirt, _technically_ she was looking at the most gorgeous woman she'd ever seen in her life because of Jack damned Kelly.

 _By that logic, I could also say it's because of David, drinking his water over there so innocently. Or because David’s father was injured. Or because of industrialism, or the class system of working for wages,_ Katherine thought to herself in a daze, and the other woman’s mouth was moving and was the other woman truly talking to her?

“–Sarah,” was the last thing Katherine caught and she smiled nervously.

“Katherine,” she replied, and awkwardly stuck her hand out to shake. Sarah’s eyes widened with recognition.

“As in Kathy? Jack’s girl?” She asked.

Jack began to splutter and David choked on his water. Katherine let out a breath she hoped was interpreted as a laugh.

“No! I mean, um, yes. Once. Not for long. Not now. Not for a while,” she said quickly.

Sarah raised a (beautiful) eyebrow at the varied reactions. “I see.”

“No, you – no, you don't!” David said loudly, still choking. “I see you thinkin’ and I know how you get when you're thinkin’ so I'm gonna need you to stop thinkin’ _right now_.”

Sarah smirked. “I _see_.”

Jack began to furiously whisper something to David, but Katherine opted to ignore the pair.

“Well, I’m not in school like David – Papa’s little prodigy,” (there was bitterness there, and for the first time since she thought she loved Jack, Katherine felt animosity towards David) “–but he was teachin’ me when he did his homework, and I helped him catch up when he went back to school. Other than that, I'm being primped by Mama to be the ‘perfect housewife.’”

Sarah Jacobs was beautiful and bitter, and Katherine desperately wanted to see her again. She told Jack as much when they had departed from the Jacobses.

“Took that much of a shine to her?” He grinned, and she softly elbowed him in the arm.

“Jack Kelly, how dare you dangle happiness in front of me like this,” she reprimanded. “Really it's just – it's inconsiderate!”

“I thought I was being very considerate.” Jack waggled his eyebrows.

“Is she even….you know,” she asked, lowering her voice.

“Into dames?” Jack shrugged. “Davey seems to think so. And you heard how she was talking about being a housewife. She doesn't want that.”

Katherine was overcome with the urge to smack Jack upside the head, but she settled for gritting her teeth and grinding out, “Jack, a lot of women who want to marry men don't want to be housewives. You and David need to learn that life isn't so good for women, and discontentment for the patriarchy doesn't automatically make a lady a lesbian.”

Jack looked at her, confused. “The patriarchy?”

Katherine sighed. “It's the fact that you don't even know what the word means and you can vote.”

Jack’s face betrayed his realization, and he asked, “You pick that up at one of your suffragette meetings?”

“It's been thrown around a bit, yes,” Katherine answered.

“Maybe I should go with you to one of those. Add to my loxicon.”

“Your lexicon,” Katherine corrected. “Now, tell me when I can see Sarah Jacobs next.”

* * *

Jack worked something out with Davey, and Katherine met up with Sarah the next week at another deli on the Lower East side. She had to go straight after work, and felt rather overdressed, especially compared to Sarah. Sarah was wearing a simple shirt and skirt, and looked dazzling.

“Katherine! It's great to see you again,” Sarah said. She looked much more at ease than before. And her accent! It was thicker than David’s, and Katherine hadn't had the chance to appreciate it before when Jack and David were interrupting every other sentence. They sat down at a booth, and someone soon came by to take their order.

“ _What’ll you ladies be having today?_ ” He asked in Yiddish.

“I'll have a bowl of matzo ball soup,” Katherine answered, and he repeated it back in Yiddish to her. She confirmed with a “ _Ja_.”

Sarah watched her curiously, then ordered some gefilte fish. The man left, and Sarah commented, “”Plumber” isn't a very Jewish name.”

_Oh G-d, Jack and David didn't tell her._

“Jack and David didn't tell you, then,” her thoughts exited her mouth in a slightly less panicked way. “Those boys love to make my life more difficult.”

Sarah looked confused, and Katherine continued, “”Plumber’s” just my pen name.” She took a deep breath, resigning herself to a life of loneliness. “It's really Pulitzer.”

Sarah’s reaction was guarded. “As in –”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you and Jack –”

“No. We're not together for different reasons.” Katherine rubbed her head. “I understand if you want me to leave.”

Sarah thought it over, and that hurt Katherine, though she understood. But finally, she said, “You helped David and Les – and all the newsies, for that matter. I don't think you're a bad person.”

“But my father –”

“‘The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity,’” Sarah recited, staring deep into Katherine’s eyes. “Ain't that right?”

Katherine’s breath caught. Her heart pumped furiously, and the blood rushed to her face. “Ain't that right,” she repeated breathlessly.

Their lunch came soon after, and while Katherine eagerly devoured her soup, she was much more focused on Sarah. Sarah, with her brilliant smile and biting comments. Sarah, with her wonderful accent and expanse of knowledge.

 _Oh no_ , Katherine thought to herself as Sarah told a crass joke about the president. _This isn't just some silly crush. I think I'm in love._

Katherine continued meeting with Sarah, but every date-that-wasn't-a-date they had made Katherine more morose. She was almost positive Sarah was straight. Katherine resigned herself to a life of lesbian solitude.

“Jack,” she said to the man in question as they exited a suffragette meeting. “How'd you and David get together? It couldn't have been as easy as you made it seem.”

Jack shrugged. “Me an’ Davey, we just did it, y’know? I mean, I was hangin’ out with youse, and Davey said he was feelin’ a bit neglected, and I asked why, and he kissed me. Easy as pie.”

“I kind of hate you, Jack Kelly,” Katherine deadpanned.

“I don't know, bein’ miserable and rich seems pretty nice,” he commented. She huffed.

“Yeah, it's nice until you wind up with all money and that's it. No friends, no family, no nothin’,” Katherine sighed. “My father isn't going to live forever –”

“And thank God for that!”

“Quiet. My father isn't going to live forever, and I want more than you and David and Les,” Katherine said. “I want to love a nice girl. Marry her, even.”

Jack hummed and hawed. “Marry? You can't even vote yet.”

“Yes, thank you for reminding me, Jack,” Katherine said. “That doesn't change my mind.”

Jack shrugged, and they continued their walk to their respective homes.

* * *

David came out to his sister on April 16th of 1900. It was a long time coming, and a wonder that Les hadn't jumped the gun. Les had been busting at the seams to tell Sarah since he found out, but David made him promise to keep the secret. Katherine heard all of this from Jack.

“And what did Sarah say?” She urged.

“Uh, she was fine with it, from what Davey said,” Jack said. “Davey could tell you more.”

Davey did tell Katherine more when she knocked on the Jacobs’ door, and after getting sibling confirmation, she rushed in and found Sarah.

“Katherine!” Sarah said, surprised. “What are you –”

“Sarah Jacobs, I'm in love with you,” Katherine said in a rush. Sarah’s eyes widened.

“You...you are?” She asked shakily. Katherine nodded, holding her breath. Sarah’s face broke into a smile. “Katherine, I've been in love with you since you came clean about your father! I thought you knew, and you weren't interested!”

Katherine gave a bark of laughter – wasn't that something? She wrapped her arms around Sarah, embracing her. “I've been interested since I first met you,” she mumbled into Sarah’s neck. “Jack and your brother –”

“Are _mushuganas_ ,” Sarah said, and Katherine laughed again. She broke away for a moment to look Sarah in the eyes, and she kissed her thoroughly. Sarah kissed back, moaning and leaning into Katherine's touch.

This was the happiest Katherine had ever been. She kept kissing Sarah, closing her eyes and just feeling. This was love, real love; not the shyness of young boys in the marketplace, not the desperate kisses in alleys with a girl whose name she didn’t even know, and not the fumbling of Jack. It was bright and beautiful. It was soft but insistent, it was hair and eyes the color of fresh mud after a thunderstorm, it was the smell of liver and latkes, it was the sound of Yiddish mixed in with an Americanized accent and the determination and fierceness of a girl told by both goyim and her family that she would never amount to anything.

 _Beautiful and bitter,_ Katherine recalled. “Horseradish,” she said aloud. It was more a mumble, really, as she was still kissing Sarah, but Sarah evidently heard.

“Excuse me?” she asked, breaking the kiss.

Katherine blushed more. “You’re like….you’re like horseradish.”

Sarah raised one eyebrow in her signature skeptical look. “Excuse me? Kath, you’ve got a hell of a way with words.”

_Kath. I like that. I like that a lot._

“You’re like horseradish with the charoset, at Passover,” Katherine said quickly. “You’re wonderful and kind and sweet and sustinent, but you have a bite. And a bitterness about your situation. And that bitterness inspires you to change your situation.”

Sarah laughed – a deep chuckle that ended in a snort. “Kath, you’ve got a _helluva_ way with words.” She framed Katherine’s face with her hands. “But I think we’re done with words for now.”

The kiss led to a bite, which led to the discarding of clothes, which led to (in Katherine’s humble opinion) the most mind-blowing sex she'd ever experienced. In the post-orgasmic haze, she took Sarah’s hand and grasped it.

“ _Ich hob dir lieb_ ,” Sarah whispered.

“I love you, too.”

* * *

Katherine and Sarah’s relationship was rushed along when Sarah’s father told her that the matchmaker had made her a match. Sarah packed her things and showed up at Katherine’s doorstep, holding everything she owned.

“My father wanted me to get married,” she said simply. “I told him no.”

And that was that.

Soon after, Sarah began searching for a job. They had to bring in money for both of them now. Food, clothes, water – it all cost money. While Katherine’s job was modest for one, it was nearly unlivable for two. But she would make it work until Sarah could get a job.

A job came in the most unexpected way. Sarah had tagged along on one of Katherine’s field reportings (no more society writing after the newsie strike!) and – well, had been in the right place at the right time. One of the other reporters had mistaken her for someone else, and had shoved a shiny bright new Brownie camera into her hands.

“Start snapping,” he barked, and Sarah did as she was told. After a few different angles, she had decided that was enough film, and she approached the man again.

“What do I do now?” she asked eagerly. The man who had given her the camera started.

“You ain’t Johnny!” he said. Sarah smiled.

“No, I am not. What do I do now?”

The man wrenched the camera back and took off. Sarah was surprised, but took it in stride. She pecked Katherine on the cheek when no one was looking, and laughed. “You’ve rubbed off on me. Nothing but journalism on the mind.”

News didn’t reach the pair until some days later, when the same man who had initially given Sarah the Brownie came knocking on their door. Sarah answered it, holding it only half open.

“Oh, praise the Lord, I’ve been looking for youse everywhere,” he said.

It turned out that the pictures Sarah had taken had impressed the editor so much, they’d made the front cover of the _New York American._ He’d demanded more of the same quality, which had sent the solitary journalist who had seen Sarah into a frantic search. Sarah accepted the offer on the spot.

“Will it be difficult, Kath, us working for competing papers and all?”

Sarah asked, worried. Katherine bit her lip. “I hope not.” She grinned. “And now we’ll have two paychecks instead of one.”

Sarah echoed her grin. “That’s very true.”

And thus Sarah Jacobs became the _New York American’s_ star photographer.

* * *

It’s not that there weren’t fights, because there were. It’s just that Katherine had matured as a person in the year after Jack, and she continued to mature while in her relationship with Sarah. So there were fights, but the pair would work through them together.

One of their worst fights had originated in their jobs, and Katherine had expected it. More accurately, she had been dreading it. When it did happen, it was just as ugly as she expected.

Katherine and Sarah were both stressed about their occupations. They were women in a male dominated field, so they had to be the best of the best and the cream of the crop to maintain their position. Both the _New York American_ and the _New York World_ had been making cuts, and both women were therefore terrified of losing their jobs.

“I’m only stressed because of your reporting!” Sarah had accused. Her Yiddish accent had come out, a clear indicator of her stress. “You and your father could cost me my job!”

“I’m not my father, how many times do I have to say that?!” Katherine had shot back. “There are other reporters at the World! But your photography is almost always front page, and that’s what sells papers! You’re robbing me of my job!”

Sarah had left the apartment, and Katherine was left to stew. But as time passed, she grew worried, and she nearly cried in relief when Sarah re-entered the apartment.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing out of her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said any of that. I’m so sorry. I’m so proud of you making the front page every day, and you’re not robbing me of my job. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Sarah said, embracing her. Katherine noticed she was crying, and she silently wiped away the tears. “Kath, you're – you're not your father. I don’t know why I would say – why I would even _think_ –”

They stood there, crying and apologizing and kissing and forgiving. Katherine’s heart swelled when they went to bed that night.

_I want to marry this woman._

* * *

Katherine’s father called her into his office one day, with “family business” being the only indicator of the conversation to follow.

“It’s time you thought about marriage,” he said. He coughed, and Katherine’s heart stuttered.

“Papa, you should be at home,” she said, trying to deflect his statement.

“Nonsense,” he said gruffly. “I’m in fine health. Now, marriage. What about the cartoonist you took a fancy to? Jack?”

“It didn’t work out, Papa, you know that,” she said carefully.

“Yes, well, you would think I wouldn’t, since I never see you anymore. When was the last time you came home for a meal? 1903?” he asked.

“I came home just the other night, Papa,” she said softly. His memory was going. Oh, he had done horrible things and he had been vicious in his prime, but he was old now. Couldn’t she spare some sympathy for her own father?

“Oh, right. That’s right,” he said absentmindedly. “But you’re twenty-five –”

“Twenty-six, Papa,” she corrected gently. He squinted at her, tilting his head slightly.

“Oh. Yes, of course. Twenty-six. Even more a reason to be married!” he said, correcting himself the getting back on track. “You need a man to protect you, Katherine.”

“I’ve been doing fine on my own. May I go?” she asked.

Her father sighed. “Yes, yes, of course. You may leave.”

“Remember to take care of yourself,” she said as she left.

* * *

Katherine married Sarah Jacobs on June 21st, 1907. Sarah’s proposal was beautiful – she had even managed a twin pair of brass rings from a street peddler. Katherine had cried, she was so happy.

The marriage was the tricky part. Katherine, Sarah, Jack, and David had encountered a small gay community in their many years, and one was a rabbi. He agreed to oversee the ceremony.

The guest list was small. Jack and David, of course, and a few friends from the community. Les was there, and Sarah cried when she saw him – he was eighteen, he had been bar mitzvahed five years ago and was a legal adult in America, but she still saw him as her baby brother.

Sarah was given the honor of breaking the glass. Katherine laughed and told her she was the prettiest groom she had ever seen. Sarah had responded by telling her to look in the mirror.

David, by then the richest of their merry crew, got them an extraordinarily fancy set of plates. The rest of the gifts were more practical. A candleholder, a blanket, and a framed drawing from Jack.

Married life was almost the same as unmarried life, as Katherine and Sarah had been domestic for years by then. But the matching brass rings on their fingers meant the world to them.

(Of course, the U.S. government didn’t recognize them. But Sarah and Katherine collectively decided the U.S. government could go to hell.)

* * *

Katherine hadn’t always wanted children, but she saw other people with them and felt a longing for another human to care for. She approached Sarah about it, and she agreed.

Easier said than done.

Jack and David were still partners, and Katherine came up with the ingenious scheme to go to the orphanage with David under the guise of adopting. Sarah would come along so she would have a say in which child they adopted, but David would be Katherine’s faux-husband so they could actually adopt the child.

Surprisingly, even to Katherine, her plan worked. They made a few visits to the orphanage (a horrid place; Sarah whispered, “I want to adopt all of them so none of them are left in this hellhole” and Katherine agreed) and found a quiet two-year-old girl they adored.

“You sure about this one?” the man there asked, his voice nasally and high. “Y’know she’s Latin. Came all the way here from Mexico.”

“I don’t see why that’s a problem,” Katherine said. The man looked at David.

“Yes, she’s the one,” he confirmed.

They made the proper payments (David really was a blessing, though he insisted he’d always wanted a niece) and took her home. They had been told her name was Nellie, but they weren’t too sure if it really was her name or just the one the orphanage had assigned to her.

“Do you know your name?” Sarah asked kindly. “Nellie” stuck her hand in her mouth and nodded.

“Can you tell me it, please?” she asked.

“Nellie” looked at her. “ _Rosa_. _Me llamo Rosa_.”

Sarah glanced at Katherine. “Spanish?”

“Spanish,” Katherine confirmed. She knelt down by Rosa and racked her brain for the Spanish she had heard on the street. “ _Hola, Rosa. Me llamo Katherine_. My name’s Katherine.”

Rosa looked at her with big, doleful eyes.

“ _Y...es Sarah,_ ” Katherine continued. “And this is Sarah. _Estamos tus madres._ ”

“ _Madres_?” Rosa repeated.

“Yes, we’re your new mothers,” Katherine said. “ _Madres_. Mothers.” She pointed to herself and Sarah.

“ _Mamas_?” Rosa asked. Sarah nodded and Katherine smiled.

“ _Sí._ Yes. Mamas.”

* * *

Life with a child was a roller coaster. She certainly cut down on Sarah and Katherine’s personal time. No more impromptu sex after a long day of work, now their focus was on Rosa, 24/7. Sarah and Katherine made the executive decision to enroll Rosa in school –“because if anyone needs a good education it’s the 20th century girl”– and they took differing shifts at work. Rosa was somewhat of a secret, however, because if either of their employers found out it’d be curtains on their job.

They made it work, though. One would go to her job and the other would watch Rosa. It was fine.

One of Katherine’s riskier moves was taking Rosa to meet her grandfather. She held Rosa as she walked through the streets and up to the big, big house of her father. He stayed at home instead of going to the office of the World nowadays. It was safer that way, but it pained Katherine to see her father so weak.

She entered the house with the key her father had given her years back, when she first moved out. She made a beeline to his room, and found him lying on the bed, asleep. She gently shook him awake.

“Papa,” she said. “I have someone to show you.”

Her father stirred awake and opened his eyes blearily. “What’s that?”

Katherine placed Rosa on the bed. “Rosa, say hello to your grandfather.”

Rosa looked at Pulitzer curiously. “ _Hola_. Hello,” she chirped. “Grandpa.”

Katherine’s father’s eyes widened slightly. “Your child?”

“Adopted,” Katherine said softly. “It turns out I did get married, Papa.”

“What?” her father croaked. “I’m married to a beautiful woman named Sarah Pulitzer-Jacobs, and this is our daughter,” she said in a rush.

Pulitzer stared at her, white as a sheet. Katherine scooped up Rosa, afraid her father would do something rash. Instead, he coughed weakly.

“I never got to walk you down the aisle…” He whispered. “You didn’t invite your father to your own wedding.”

Katherine felt her eyes fill with tears, and she wiped them away with one hand.

“I have to leave now, Papa. I love you,” she said, choked up. “Say bye-bye to grandpa, Rosa.”

“Bye-bye. _Adiós_ ,” Rosa said, waving at Pulitzer. Katherine saw him weakly wave back.

“Goodbye, Rosa,” he said in a rasp. “Goodbye, Katherine.”

Katherine’s father died less than a year later, in 1911. She, Sarah, and Rosa all attended the funeral.

* * *

Time flew, and soon Rosa was six, then nine, then thirteen. Katherine and Sarah were middle-aged by then. 1921! Katherine couldn’t believe it. She’d seen the war to end all wars – and reported on the home front, too. She got her very first haircut, chopping off her hair into a stylish bob. Not to mention the silly prohibition law. And the vote – women finally got the vote! All those protests and marches Katherine and Sarah had gone to had paid off. It was all so new. It was nothing like when Katherine had been a little girl.

“Mama! Ma! I’m home!” Rosa yelled, entering the apartment.

“Hello, dear,” Sarah said, kissing her on her head. Rosa squirmed from underneath her.

“Mama, I’m not a baby anymore,” she groused.

“You’ll always be my baby,” Sarah said, holding her tight. Rosa sighed, but allowed the hug.

Katherine ruffled her hair. “What did you learn in school today, dear?”

“More math. It’s super interesting! Did you know they’re still inventing new math?” she said excitedly.

“Who is?” Katherine asked. “Mathematicians! Like Albert Einstein, he figured out new math and stuff about space just two years ago!” Rosa continued.

“That was in physics, I believe,” Sarah said. “Very exciting!”

“I know! Oh, and I almost forgot –” Rosa dug something out of her schoolbag. “I got the highest grade on the math test!”

“I’m so proud of you, darling!” Katherine said happily. Rosa continued to chatter excitedly. Katherine was anxious about Rosa’s future, and she knew Sarah was too. Rosa was a girl, and she wasn’t white, and she was being raised Jewish. Katherine couldn’t help but feel they were setting Rosa up for disappointment.

“I want to be a great scientist like Albert Einstein someday!” Rosa declared.

“Oh, I hope you are, darling,” Sarah said, squeezing her tight. “I hope you are.”

* * *

The great thing about life, Katherine learned as she grew even older, is that it never stopped. It just kept going.

Rosa grew into a beautiful and incredibly intelligent young woman. Katherine and Sarah saved their pennies for college, and prayed to G-d Rosa would get scholarship. G-d was listening, because Rosa entered NYU the fall of 1926 with most expenses paid. And the beauty of it was that though Sarah and Katherine were walloped by the stock market crash, Rosa was relatively protected in college.

Sarah, now going on 52, cut up vegetables for dinner and groaned about the Depression. “It’s hit minority communities especially hard – and the rich keep getting richer.”

Katherine kissed her on the cheek. “Careful, they’ll be calling you a Communist.”

“Oh, what a horrible insult!” Sarah said dramatically. “A _Communist!_  A _socialist!_ ”

“It’s better than what they’ve got in Germany,” Katherine said darkly. “You’ve remember that Hitler fellow.”

Sarah shuddered. “God save us all. God save _them_ all.”

“I don’t understand America –“we are the protectors of democracy! The hero of the weak!”” Katherine quoted. “Yet they let innocent people die.”

“The only ones who truly care about Jews are Jews themselves,” Sarah said simply.

Katherine hugged her waist. “That’s my horseradish,” she said fondly, then sighed. “That’s my horrifyingly correct horseradish.”

* * *

Rosa got a PhD. A PhD! Sarah hadn't even been able to attend primary school, Katherine barely making it through the 10th grade, and their daughter was graduating with the highest degree in her field. Katherine and Sarah cheered the loudest at her graduation, and cried all over her robes (much to her embarrassment).

Rosa was immediately employed, too. The Americans finally decided that the Hitler problem was something they should be involved in. Katherine had never dreamed she would see one world war, let alone two. But she and Sarah, both sixty in 1939, saw the second globally catastrophic war of the century. Rosa was employed by the government to help with weapon building against the Japanese.

Katherine knew she was old now. Even in her fifties, she could deny it, but now her bones ached, and her skin was sallow. Sarah had grown old too, but looked at her with the same love as she had when they were 21.

World War II passed, because everything passed eventually. Katherine finally quit the newspaper she had been working at for half a century. She and Sarah moved to a place with less stairs that wasn’t as dangerous in the winter. They had more time to visit Jack and David, too. Sarah continued to take photographs, but for a magazine instead. They could relax because of FDR’s social security.

World War II ended, but it seemed just as soon as it ended the Korean conflict began. _Will there always be war?_ Katherine pondered, even after the conflict was over. She was 72 years old and unafraid to kiss Sarah in broad daylight now. What were they going to do, lock a poor old lady up for the rest of her days?

Then came the day when there was no Sarah to kiss anymore. Sarah had been 78. That was amazing; she had lived longer than the two of them could have ever dreamed when they were young. Fifty years of marriage.

Jack went soon after, and David of the same illness as Jack. Les had moved to Santa Fe years ago, living out Jack's dream, and he still lived there to Katherine's knowledge. Katherine was left alone at 80, in a brightly colored world she didn’t belong to. She felt like a relic of the previous century.

She wasn’t completely alone, because she still had Rosa. Dr. Rosa Pulitzer-Jacobs, as it said on the degree that hung on her wall. She had children too, now, and Katherine was grateful that Sarah had been able to meet at least one of her grandchildren before she passed.

Katherine hobbled outside, having to use a cane. It was dark out, but not unbearably hot as it had been in the daytime. She wandered around Greenwich Village alone. It was a week since what would have been her and Sarah’s 52nd wedding anniversary.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a commotion. What could she say, she still had a reporter’s instincts at heart. It was a bar – the Stonewall Inn, she recalled. Police were gathered around, and Katherine hobbled forward a bit faster, trying to see what was going on.

A woman in handcuffs was forced out of the bar, kicking and swearing. There was blood coming from a wound on her head. She was a lesbian – Katherine could tell, she had kept up with the fashion trends and identifiers within the community, though she had never had a reason to change herself.

The crowd was loudly protesting, and they were gay too (birds of a feather, and all that). Katherine couldn’t make out individual words, but they were angry. She spotted some trans women as well. One of these women – she was black, and she had such fire in her eyes that she reminded Katherine of Sarah – threw a brick at the cops. The cops scattered, and the gay mob roared.

Katherine found herself getting swept up in the roar. Why hadn’t she been allowed to kiss her wife in public until a few years before her death? Why hadn’t their marriage been legal before the state? She awkwardly bent down, and picked up a brick by her feet.

“This is for Sarah, my horseradish, my _wife_!” she screamed, and chucked it at the police. Her cries got lost among the crowd. It was a mob, rightfully angry, rightfully bitter.

Katherine was too swept up in it. She fell.

* * *

Katherine opened her eyes and smiled. Sarah, appearing as she did when Katherine first met her in 1899 with Jack and David in the deli, beamed at her.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, kissing Katherine.

“Hello, my horseradish.”

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: Fixed the images - photobucket sourcing failed, so moved to flickr.


End file.
